A Servant of the Buddha

A servant of the Buddha prioritizes over everything else the cultivation of unobstructed awareness; the just-knowing mind. A servant of Dhamma regularly asks him or herself, how can I be more accurately attuned to the reality of ‘this’ experience, to what is happening right here, right now, in front of me? For a servant of the sangha, the thing that matters most is that our participation in community contributes to concord. Our refuge in sangha is to do with relationships, interactions.

We could think of Sangha in terms of those disciples of the Buddha who are unshakeably established on the path of awakening (ariya-puggala); who are completely free from moral faults and unable to intentionally cause harm to any living being. Or we could consider sangha in terms of the conventional monastic community of monks and nuns, committed to an extensive system for training in impeccability. Or we could be paying attention to our own inner truth-seeker. However we might contemplate sangha, if we are committed to serving reality, we are interested in how we can act more honestly and more effectively in ways that lead to an increase in harmony.

Such a commitment to harmony includes wanting to see how personally we might be contributing to disharmony. Whatever our walk of life, we all encounter situations where it is clear that we are the ones at fault; at other times it is clear that the fault is due to others. And then there are those situations where it is just not clear who is causing the disharmony.

Right training at every stage means being able to hold back, with skilful restraint and wise reflection, and wait until the situation becomes clear.

This reflection by Ajahn Munindo is from the book, Servant of Reality, (pdf) pp. 16-17.